Fandomy Ranting...
*loves my flist*
Disclaimer: I don't care if you love the things I don't. Or hate the things I love. Any of them. We're cool.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and my father is coming and I've been stressed out and my pet peeves have been irritating me more than usual. Beneath the cut are random things that have annoyed me, why, and a great deal of irrationality.
1. I hate Peyton Manning. A lot. Forever and always. My hatred is eternal, epic, and undying. The other day I stumbled across a writer who had Manning/Brady fic in her journal. I boggled for a while. I'm not all that comfortable with rps. It's a personal thing. I usually just move on to the next thing when I see people posting it. However, this stumped me. For one, Peyton Manning. Enemy. Secondly, I rate my team's collective sex life up there with my parents. Do. Not. Want. Seriously. I don't care about their private lives at all. I actively avoid reading about it. I can't tell you any of their birthdays, whether most of them are married or single, or where they live normally. I care about their stats. Or if they're injured. Or retiring. There ends my interests. I adore them. They're my beloved Patriots and thus not affected by human stuff.
2. Slash or m/m as a warning. Again, today, I saw this on a fic header. Actually, this particular one also warned for "naughty language" and I totally won't click it. I used to just read headers for the relevant info. Pairing, rating, squicks, readability. Now, I see that and won't click. If there's a "pg-13 for a swear" or "two guys kissing" or stuff like that I just am...wtf? I don't recall how my headers were when I started. All I know is that slash for a warning or cutesy naughty word warnings make me twitch. Inherently, I don't like warnings that make it seem as if slash isn't okay. Warning for swears makes me think poster is seekritly twelve.
3. Gay for you (and only you) fic. I've read it. It's hard not to read it. And then there's characters who are just so weird about sex and love (Tokito, anyone?) that anything is a big deal.
But...I guess a part of me wants characters to have already embraced their sexuality, come to terms with it in some way, and have already moved on from it. It's not that a good fic about someone coming to terms isn't fine, but going on ad nauseum about how not gay they are and how much it's strange for them to wanting this guy and making stupid puns about "tell it to me straight" "not straight, he he he" are just...sometimes (SOMETIMES, NOT ALL THE TIME) it comes off as the writer him or herself being uncomfortable with people being actually gay. Like it's a bad thing that's only okay because they love their soul mate. It's not like I'm expecting each character (especially ones whose canon has multiple canon het ships) to have been around the block, it's more that I'm tired of the it's only okay if it's love. Otherwise, it's bad.
3a. It's sorta related. Characters in their first gay sex scene suddenly hating the het sex they used to love. Or past het relationships. If they're straight for forty years, (Straight straight and not gay pretending to be straight) discounting that does a disservice. Being in a relationship with someone does not make you stop being attracted to other people, even in passing. It does not negate every relationship that came before.
I was reading a Tony/Gibbs thing and suddenly Gibbs was all mansex!! with Tony!! which is...fine...and then suddenly, it was even deeper and more lovey than anything he felt for Shannon. The dead wife he's still not over in canon after 16 years. Tony's ass isn't all that magical, fyi.
4. Men in their forties (on average) take 45 minutes to two hours to have a second erection after ejaculation. 35-40% of men in their forties have some sort of erectile dysfunction. John and Rodney aren't going to have five rounds within three hours or something. Unless there's sex pollen/juice/dust. They're going to have one, if they're lucky, and sleep.
5. Whenever people mention to others that they're doing something wrong or unrealistic or something, inevitably someone will say: I don't care. It's just fanfiction. I'm not going to blah blah blah over a hobby. I get that. I do. I just wish they'd put a disclaimer in their header: I don't want crit or I was lazy and didn't research or I can't spell to save my soul and prepare the spork for your eyeballs because I'm too sexy for my beta, my beta, my beta.
5a. I've been following a bit of the ssc bdsm side and the stfu, it's just fantasy thing. I think this: I think when writing something that someone actually lives, it's wrong to just handwave realism. I understand that if someone is writing something for titillation purposes that they won't want to get into the picayune details. I also get that if you live it, forgetting those details can make reading it uncomfortable. If you leave out ensuring consent in a scene, sure it can be hot to those just reading for fun but a person who lives it, who sees that consent as essential, it can be possibly triggering or whatever. I think both sides have a point. And my only point is that I hate Peyton Manning. Srsly.
6. Sometimes I think we should have a Geneva convention for fandom in which we all sit around a table and hammer things out. Like...how to rate things? The MPAA ratings aren't internationally known. And some people use FRAO and I still have no fucking clue what it stands for. HAHA. I wish there was a standard for warnings. What should be warned for and when...OR at least an "official" way of opting out.
6a. At this mythical convention, they should also explain when to use non-con as a warning and when to use dub-con and when to use something else. (I know in rl, they're all rape, but fandom has different definitions) There's nothing worse than finding that someone's dubcon is your noncon.
7. I still hate Peyton Manning.
I'm probably forgetting things but I need to go clean and at least this is off my chest for now.
Disclaimer: I don't care if you love the things I don't. Or hate the things I love. Any of them. We're cool.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and my father is coming and I've been stressed out and my pet peeves have been irritating me more than usual. Beneath the cut are random things that have annoyed me, why, and a great deal of irrationality.
1. I hate Peyton Manning. A lot. Forever and always. My hatred is eternal, epic, and undying. The other day I stumbled across a writer who had Manning/Brady fic in her journal. I boggled for a while. I'm not all that comfortable with rps. It's a personal thing. I usually just move on to the next thing when I see people posting it. However, this stumped me. For one, Peyton Manning. Enemy. Secondly, I rate my team's collective sex life up there with my parents. Do. Not. Want. Seriously. I don't care about their private lives at all. I actively avoid reading about it. I can't tell you any of their birthdays, whether most of them are married or single, or where they live normally. I care about their stats. Or if they're injured. Or retiring. There ends my interests. I adore them. They're my beloved Patriots and thus not affected by human stuff.
2. Slash or m/m as a warning. Again, today, I saw this on a fic header. Actually, this particular one also warned for "naughty language" and I totally won't click it. I used to just read headers for the relevant info. Pairing, rating, squicks, readability. Now, I see that and won't click. If there's a "pg-13 for a swear" or "two guys kissing" or stuff like that I just am...wtf? I don't recall how my headers were when I started. All I know is that slash for a warning or cutesy naughty word warnings make me twitch. Inherently, I don't like warnings that make it seem as if slash isn't okay. Warning for swears makes me think poster is seekritly twelve.
3. Gay for you (and only you) fic. I've read it. It's hard not to read it. And then there's characters who are just so weird about sex and love (Tokito, anyone?) that anything is a big deal.
But...I guess a part of me wants characters to have already embraced their sexuality, come to terms with it in some way, and have already moved on from it. It's not that a good fic about someone coming to terms isn't fine, but going on ad nauseum about how not gay they are and how much it's strange for them to wanting this guy and making stupid puns about "tell it to me straight" "not straight, he he he" are just...sometimes (SOMETIMES, NOT ALL THE TIME) it comes off as the writer him or herself being uncomfortable with people being actually gay. Like it's a bad thing that's only okay because they love their soul mate. It's not like I'm expecting each character (especially ones whose canon has multiple canon het ships) to have been around the block, it's more that I'm tired of the it's only okay if it's love. Otherwise, it's bad.
3a. It's sorta related. Characters in their first gay sex scene suddenly hating the het sex they used to love. Or past het relationships. If they're straight for forty years, (Straight straight and not gay pretending to be straight) discounting that does a disservice. Being in a relationship with someone does not make you stop being attracted to other people, even in passing. It does not negate every relationship that came before.
I was reading a Tony/Gibbs thing and suddenly Gibbs was all mansex!! with Tony!! which is...fine...and then suddenly, it was even deeper and more lovey than anything he felt for Shannon. The dead wife he's still not over in canon after 16 years. Tony's ass isn't all that magical, fyi.
4. Men in their forties (on average) take 45 minutes to two hours to have a second erection after ejaculation. 35-40% of men in their forties have some sort of erectile dysfunction. John and Rodney aren't going to have five rounds within three hours or something. Unless there's sex pollen/juice/dust. They're going to have one, if they're lucky, and sleep.
5. Whenever people mention to others that they're doing something wrong or unrealistic or something, inevitably someone will say: I don't care. It's just fanfiction. I'm not going to blah blah blah over a hobby. I get that. I do. I just wish they'd put a disclaimer in their header: I don't want crit or I was lazy and didn't research or I can't spell to save my soul and prepare the spork for your eyeballs because I'm too sexy for my beta, my beta, my beta.
5a. I've been following a bit of the ssc bdsm side and the stfu, it's just fantasy thing. I think this: I think when writing something that someone actually lives, it's wrong to just handwave realism. I understand that if someone is writing something for titillation purposes that they won't want to get into the picayune details. I also get that if you live it, forgetting those details can make reading it uncomfortable. If you leave out ensuring consent in a scene, sure it can be hot to those just reading for fun but a person who lives it, who sees that consent as essential, it can be possibly triggering or whatever. I think both sides have a point. And my only point is that I hate Peyton Manning. Srsly.
6. Sometimes I think we should have a Geneva convention for fandom in which we all sit around a table and hammer things out. Like...how to rate things? The MPAA ratings aren't internationally known. And some people use FRAO and I still have no fucking clue what it stands for. HAHA. I wish there was a standard for warnings. What should be warned for and when...OR at least an "official" way of opting out.
6a. At this mythical convention, they should also explain when to use non-con as a warning and when to use dub-con and when to use something else. (I know in rl, they're all rape, but fandom has different definitions) There's nothing worse than finding that someone's dubcon is your noncon.
7. I still hate Peyton Manning.
I'm probably forgetting things but I need to go clean and at least this is off my chest for now.